


ran away from everything but can't ever say goodbye to you (please baby i need you to make feel good)

by i_write_shit_pls_read_it



Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Just for the record, Liz is missing Ressler so she calls him up, Phone Sex, That's it, a tad more explicit than my regular work, also a work of art, and it just sort of spirals from there, but can be summed up in two words, but still, god what a truly fantastic episode, really just a work of art, takes place two weeks after 8x3, that's the fic, this fic on the other hand, this is like, which granted is not saying much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:08:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29082159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_write_shit_pls_read_it/pseuds/i_write_shit_pls_read_it
Summary: Two weeks after robbing Reddington and fleeing the country, Liz can't help but miss her partner.
Relationships: Elizabeth Keen/Donald Ressler
Comments: 3
Kudos: 76





	ran away from everything but can't ever say goodbye to you (please baby i need you to make feel good)

**Author's Note:**

> As anyone and everyone in the Keenler fandom knows, on this day in history, we got our very first Keenler sex scene and it was BEAUTIFUL. So beautiful, in fact, that after watching the episode I decided to go ahead and write this fic. Liz is once more on the run and Ressler is chasing her, but if the powers that be are gracious enough to smile upon us, we will still get those heartbreaking phone calls.

After nearly a decade as an FBI agent, Liz couldn’t sleep in if she tried. Every morning without fail, come 6:30 her eyes snap open. She allows herself a moment to gather her wits, still unused to waking up in strange hotel suites in foreign countries, and swings her legs over the side of the bed.

She walks softly over to the next room and pokes her head around the doorframe, her heartrate settling at the sight of her daughter’s quietly sleeping form. She’d been tempted to book a room with only one bed, not wanting to let Agnes out of her sight for even a moment, but they were both used to having their own rooms and the fewer conflicts the better.

Satisfied for now, she makes her way over to the bathroom and turns on the shower, stripping her clothes off as the mirror fogs up.

The water burns as it hits her skin, and in response she turns the temperature up even higher. When she could no longer go any hotter without boiling herself alive, she tilts her face up under the fall and closes her eyes.

The curtain is pulled away with a snap and Liz whirls around, mouth falling open as she sees Ressler, unclothed, on the other side. Struggling to keep her eyes on his face, Liz blinks rapidly. “Ressler, what the hell are you doing here?”

His gaze seems to drill into her, hot and demanding. “I knew I’d find you eventually, Liz.” Liz. Not Keen.

In one fluid motion, he steps into the shower, jerks the curtain closed and presses Liz up against the wall, kissing her hard. She gasps involuntarily, not even playacting at resistance as she kisses him back, hard.

The water runs down their faces like tears as he sweeps his tongue inside her mouth. His hand fists in her wet hair, pulling her head to the side as he kisses her hungrily, before moving to her neck and sucking hard enough to leave a bruise. His other hand comes down to grip her thigh, lifting her leg which she obligingly wraps around him.

She uses her own hands to grab his face, returning his mouth to hers. She never should have gone to his apartment that night. What an idiot she was, to think she could learn how he tasted, how his body moved, how his voice sounded when he was gasping her name, and think she could still walk away from him. He grips her hair tighter and unable to help herself Liz moans.

Ressler pulls away and it’s like having fingernails ripped out. Liz opens her eyes but doesn’t have time to ask questions because then Ressler is turning her around, practically throwing her up against the shower wall. She catches herself with her hands as he moves her hair aside, his hand tracing a path down her shoulder blades to between her legs. Her eyes roll back in her head as he brings her to the brink with his fingers, and then he bites down hard on the junction of her neck and shoulder.

Liz cries out, vision going black –

There is a knocking at the door and Liz gasps as her eyes snap open.

“Mommy? Are you in there?”

Her breaths are coming in short pants, and she presses her hands into her eyes. “Sweetheart what are you doing up this early?”

“There’s a man at the door.”

Skip. Liz sighs. She’d spent longer in the shower than she realized. “Go sit on your bed, I’ll be right out.”

She turns the water off and dresses in record time, grabbing a gun as she heads to check the spyhole and confirm the visitor’s identity. Seeing that it is indeed Skip, she opens the door to let him in, hoping he will ignore how her hair is dripping onto the carpet.

Liz had never truly appreciated how many doors money opened before. Later that very afternoon, after another plane ride to another country, having successfully bribed and blackmailed a number of Reddington’s people into being her eyes and ears, Liz and Agnes show up at their new hotel room. She tries to stay at the same company each time, hoping the similarity of the rooms would provide Agnes with some sense of routine.

Liz was doing her best to not think very far ahead in terms of her daughter, after she killed Reddington and took over his empire. What would she do when Agnes was older? She absolutely did not want her daughter to lead a life of crime, but she could only keep Agnes with her for so long before the police would begin to consider her an accomplice. Maybe she could find a nice sunny country with no extradition, set her up with a brand new identity and visit when she could.

She watches as Agnes happily goes to town on one of her many coloring books, turns on the television for her and turns up the volume, and goes into her bedroom. She locks the door and pulls out a brand new burner phone, turning it over in her hands as she tries to talk herself out of what she is about to do. _It’s nearly midnight in DC_ , Liz attempts to reason. _He won’t even be awake. He could trace the call._

She dials anyway, his number having long ago become muscle memory.

He answers on the fifth ring. “Ressler.”

Her breath catches at the sound of his voice, and she finds herself incapable of speech.

“Hello?”

She digs her nails into her palms before sinking onto the bed. “Hey.”

“Keen?” His voice is sharp and unforgiving. “What do you want?”

She shakes her head, forgetting he couldn’t see her. “Nothing. I was just,” her voice trails off. What was she doing exactly? “How are you?”

“How am I?” His tone shifts from sharp to acidic. “Well let’s see, I’m attempting to track down my fugitive partner before she commits premeditated murder, in addition to the laundry list of crimes she’s committed already. Not to mention said partner apparently thinks I’m stupid enough to let her use me again.”

There is a lump in Liz’s throat that had not been there before she called. “I wasn’t using you,” she protested.

“Really? So that phone call at the train station, that note about having flipped Marvin Gerard? What would you call it then?”

Liz closes her eyes. She is, truly, a despicable person. “Okay, so, I may have, deceived you.” She trips over the words, wanting to defend herself but having no defense. “But I wasn’t using you.”

“Keen I’m going to ask you nicely not to insult my intelligence.” Now he just sounds tired. “I know you were using me, the only real question is how long was it going on? How much of it was a lie?” Unable to speak, Liz could only listen as Ressler pressed on relentlessly. “That time you kissed me and stole my gun? The phone calls saying you didn’t want to say goodbye? Or how about when you showed up at my apartment and slept with me? Was any of it real?”

“It _was_ ,” Liz cries, abruptly finding her voice. “It was real,” she repeated, quieter this time. “All of it was real.”

She hears him sigh, eighteen hours and an ocean away. “I want to believe that. But it’s hard to take your word for anything when you have sex with me, use me, and then drop off the face of the earth for two weeks.”

Liz presses her face into her hand. “You don’t deserve this,” she chokes out. “I know you don’t deserve this. I’m sorry.”

The silence on the other end of the phone lasts so long Liz thinks he might’ve hung up, but then he sighs again. “You don’t deserve this either.”

She rolls her eyes. “If you’re referring to my being on the run in a foreign country I’m fairly certain that’s just karma catching up with me.”

“I was talking about what Reddington’s done to you.” Liz’s quip dies in her throat. “He showed up in your life with no warning, murdered your father, your mother, never tells you anything, and he always expects you to forgive him. You don’t deserve any of what he’s done to you. And if I’m being honest, if our positions were swapped I probably would have snapped a long time ago.”

Her heart is pounding rather painfully in her chest. “I’ve always forgiven him. I don’t know how I manage it or why I put in the effort, but I remind myself Reddington loves me and he has his reasons, and I manage to get past it. But now every time I close my eyes I see him shooting Katarina right in front of me, and I can’t get past it. I don’t know if I even want to.”

There is another long silence. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

Liz pulls the phone away from her ear to make sure she isn’t hallucinating this conversation. “Excuse me?”

“I’m not saying I’m on board with you killing him,” Ressler hastens to explain. “But has he even apologized?”

“No,” Liz admits. “But I know he loves me.” _Why_ was she defending him?

“And at what point does that stop being enough?” Ressler demands. “Reddington loves you, but not enough to tell you the truth. He loves you, but not enough to not hurt you. However much he loves you Liz, right now I think he loves you wrong.”

Liz closes her eyes, an immense feeling of relief sweeping through her. How long had she waited to hear someone say those words? How long had she wanted someone to validate her hurt and rage? “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you saying that.”

“Yeah, well, someone had to.” There is noise on the other end of the phone, she recognizes the sound of him turning on a lamp. “Why’d you call Keen? The real answer.”

The real answer. “I’ve thought about calling every day,” she confesses. “I wake up in the morning and think about calling when I’d normally be getting ready for work. I think about calling every time I get on a plane to let you know where I’m going. I think about calling before I go to sleep at night to apologize for everything and beg for your forgiveness.” The next words catch in her throat but she forces them out anyway. “I think about calling you when I’m in the shower or lying in bed, wishing you were still just a drive away.”

She hears his breath catch ever so slightly at this last admission. “You don’t need me to forgive you for anything Liz.”

He’s back to Liz. “I really do,” she insists. “You were right. I used you with that phone call. I knew how you would react and I used it to my advantage, but I should’ve known you were off limits and I’m sorry.”

“I shouldn’t have done it. I hate that you knew I’d turn you in.”

Conflicting memories flash through her mind. Ressler staring at her, eyes desperate and throat bobbing. _“I still need to do my job, Keen.”_ Tom handcuffed to a chair, defending himself. _“Stop talking about your job!”_ Both men hellbent on doing their jobs, but Tom’s dedication had made them nearly kill each other and Ressler’s just made her love him more.

“I shouldn’t have put you in that position in the first place.”

Ressler laughs but it’s a defeated sound. “So where does that leave us?”

_It leaves me sitting here, hopelessly in love with you_. “I’ll stop calling,” she promised, the words burning on their way out. “I won’t make you choose between me and your job.”

“What if I don’t want you to stop calling?” he fires back. “I worry about you Liz. I need to know you’re okay.”

She falls back into the pillows, picking out patterns in the ceiling. “What would we even talk about? ‘Hi honey, how’s your day, any new leads on finding me?’” The words sound even stupider out loud.

Liz can hear him shifting around in bed. “We could talk about sports.”

A laugh bursts out of her. “You’ve never watched a sports game in your life,” she teases.

“That’s not true. I’ll have you know I attended exactly three basketball games in high school.”

She laughs harder. “Yeah, to report on them for the school newspaper.”

“Details.”

She had forgotten what it felt like to smile this way. “So that’s a no on sports.”

“What about scientific discoveries?”

“Please tell me you’re not referring to the blacklister trying to crack human immortality.”

He huffs out a laugh, part amusement part frustration. Liz idly rolls a strand of hair around her finger as she awaits his next suggestion. “You could tell me what you’re wearing.”

She stills, unsure if she heard him right. But Ressler doesn’t repeat himself, and she knows the ball is in her court. Liz licks her lips, wishing she were wearing sexier clothes. “Nothing fancy,” she manages to say. “Jeans and a shirt.”

Liz purposefully leaves the door open, needing him to open it wider. _Show me you still want me after everything I’ve done to you_. Her grip on the phone is white-knuckled.

“Describe it to me.”

She swallows, fervently grateful she locked the door. “My shirt’s long-sleeved and gray. A filmy, charcoal color. The jeans are washed out skinny jeans.”

“What else?” His voice is just a little bit hoarse.

Liz lets her hand slide under her shirt and onto her stomach, slightly hesitant. She is familiar with the machinations of phone sex, but has never actually done it, and is afraid of messing it up.

She closes her eyes. This is Ressler, her partner, the man she loves. If all else fails, Liz knows she can just go with her gut instinct and the rest will work itself out.

“I’m wearing a red bra that hooks in the front,” she tells him. “I was thinking about you when I put it on.” God help her but that last part isn’t even a lie. Liz spends an unhealthy amount of time thinking about Ressler while getting dressed and undressed each day.

“What were you thinking about?”

Her hand goes higher, cupping her breast. “I thought about you taking it off. Taking all of my clothes off, one piece at a time.”

“Jesus Liz.”

Liz knows he’s about to say something else but keeps going. She slips her hand under the bra to knead her breast as she speaks, imagining it’s his hand and not hers. “I’m wearing matching panties. I thought about you while putting those on, too.”

“Liz.” His voice is thick.

“Hmm.”

“Are you touching yourself right now?”

She arches her back slightly. “Yes.”

“Fuck.” The word is a moan. “Tell me what you’re doing.”

“Um.” Liz is finding it very hard to piece together thoughts at the moment, but she finds it becomes easier if she imagines Ressler is on the bed next to her, watching her. “Touching my, my breasts. The way you do.”

“Open up your jeans.”

It’s more of a command than a request, and with anyone else Liz would hang up the phone, but she loves when he takes charge. She opens her jeans. “Now what?”

His breaths are becoming increasingly short. “Bring your hand down between your legs.” Liz dips her hand beneath her panties, still pretending it’s Ressler. She moans softly when she realizes she’s already wet for him. “Tell me what you’re doing.”

“Touching myself,” Liz gasps. “Moving my fingers, pretending you’re the one touching me.”

Ressler curses again, breathing hard. “Ressler,” Liz barely manages to get out the words. “Are you touching yourself right now?”

He doesn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”

This elicits another moan from Liz. “Are you pretending it’s me?”

“Yes.” His voice is a rasp. “I always imagine it’s you.”

One word in particular catches her attention. “Always?”

“Every night since you left.” Liz can so clearly see him in her mind’s eye, lying in his bed with one hand beneath the sweatpants he sleeps in, the bulge of his arousal evident. “I come in my room where you and I made love and I pretend that you’re still here.”

Her eyes burn at the admission, but she refuses to let herself get derailed. “Does that include earlier tonight?”

“Yes.” The way he says it makes her think he’s gritting his teeth.

Liz moves her hand faster, her boldness rising along with her euphoria. “If I was there right now I’d make you feel good,” she promises. “I’d begin with my hand as I kissed you, not too fast, just enough to let you know what’s going to come. Then I’d start moving down, past your chest, your stomach. I’d pull off your pants and then to start off I’d lick you.”

Ressler’s “fuck” is noticeably more emphatic this time, but Liz keeps going.

“While I’m using my mouth I’d go slow, make you work for it. And then right as you’re about to finish I’d pull back so I could ride you.” She turns her head so she can hold the phone with her shoulder, and brings her newly freed hand up to toy with her breasts, gasping slightly as she speaks. “You’d put one hand on my breast, like you did that night, but you’d put your other between my legs where we come together and I’d work my hips until it’s all too much and you can’t help but come.”

Ressler’s groan switches into a gasp halfway through, and she knows he’s finished. Her eyes still closed, she imagines him falling onto the bed beside her as she hears him pant through the phone.

“Are you still touching yourself Liz?”

It’s a few seconds before she can answer. “Uh huh.”

“Where?”

Words are a herculean effort, but she manages. “My, my breasts, and between, between my legs.”

“If I was there,” Ressler starts, and his voice is low and gravelly and Liz thinks she just might die. “I’d touch you one place at a time. Get to know you. All the ways to make you gasp and moan. I’d start with my hands on your breasts and I’d start soft, get you all turned on and needy. And then I’d lean down and bite them.”

Liz cries softly at this admission and pinches her nipple, imagining it’s his teeth. “And then?”

“Once you’re all worked up I’d stop for a minute and just go back to kissing you, but right when you start to relax I’d bring my hand down and start to finger you, and then as soon as you’ve done that thing where you dig your nails into my back and gasp my name, I’d put my fingers inside you.”

Liz barely covers her mouth in time to choke on a moan as she finishes, wishing hotel walls weren’t so goddamn thin, wishing she could be loud for him. Far too soon she comes down from the high, breathing hard.

“Don’t stop.” His voice is rough. “I’m not done with you yet.”

Liz bites her lip and makes a sound she’s never made before as she returns her hands to their previous positions. Her body temperature is running hotter than is probably healthy and nerve endings all over her body are overstimulated, but she needs Ressler’s voice like she needs oxygen. If he told her to go the roof of the building and jump she’d probably do it. “What would you do next?” She can hear how breathy she sounds.

“Once I was done with my hands, I’d kiss you some more and then crawl down to work on you with my mouth.”

She’s trembling all over and feels vaguely like a drug addict in the middle of a hit. “How?”

Ressler is breathing hard and Liz knows he’s touching himself again. “Just like at the beginning I’d start slow. Kiss the inside of your thighs, around your lips, everywhere but that one place you really want. And then I’d lick you, and as I’m licking you I’d bring my hand up to put my fingers back inside of you. Get you as turned on as possible, and then I’d come back up and kiss you, let you taste yourself on me.”

Liz is rocking her hips against her hand, pretending Ressler is here and lying on top of her, imagining she can feel all the ways his body presses up against hers.

“And then I’d go inside you and you’d wrap your legs around me as I thrust inside of you, over and over again until you finish. Liz.” The sound of him saying her name nearly undoes her. “Come for me Liz.”

Almost as though she’d been waiting for permission Liz’s body responds to his command and she turns her head into the pillow to stifle her moans.

When she finally stills, breathing hard, she moves her hand back to pick up the phone. “Are you still there?”

Ressler must know what’s coming next because his voice is tinged with surrender. “I’m here, Keen.”

Back to Keen. Her throat closes up but she speaks anyway. “I have to go.” _I have to go take down Reddington, go find a way to kill him, go avenge my mother he shot dead in the park right in front of me._

“I know you do.”

He doesn’t even try to stop her this time, and it makes her want him to try and stop her. “I could come back.”

He sighs. “I don’t think you could. You’ll never be satisfied until you finish this.”

Liz knows this, of course she knows this. She started down this path knowing it would take her away from him, and now she has to see it through. “I’ll be thinking of you.”

“I’ll be thinking of you too, Keen.” He hesitates before adding, “I think about you all the time. I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to, and I don’t want to, so do me a favor and try to call more often so I know you’re alive.”

He hangs up immediately after he finishes speaking, but Liz doesn’t move. She stays in the bed for an untold amount of time, listening to the dial tone in her ear, the unsaid words she’d wanted to tell him crowding against her lips.

_I love you. I love you. I love you._


End file.
